Democratic Primary Season 2020

[mrsleeve]

What was your point again? That their better? I guess personal responsibility doesn't extend to having an informed opinion.

Fins are taxed to beat hell to pay for their failing free shit programs, I guess they will be willing to keep paying more?? Finns are are very tolerant and even keel people, until pushed too far, I am married into a gaggle of them i have a small insight. In some societies thats acceptable, like ones that had lived though 3 decades of warfare or threat of when these programs were adopted shortly after. Their programs are going bankrupt, So are ours, why would we add to what we are already paying for (green or not) when there is not 1 country in the world that has figured out how to make healthcare fit the utopian view of free for all and highly effective. Our system is not perfect and not with out its faults, but taking the competition out of it and leaving up to the govt to handle is not a better solution look at the VA for how our govt handles its heath care.

Defense against who exactly? Last I checked the last time the US was invaded was the war of 1812.

WOW holy hell you have a massive gap in your history here..... Hummm since 1812... Off the top of my head, date are approximate as I am not going to go look all this shit back up. Mexican/American war 1844ish, Battle of Columbus in 1916ish, The Tom Explosion 1916ish, The bombing of New Orleans 1919ish, the battle of Nogales 1917ish, Pearl Harbor 12/7/1941 and various U-boat operations off Newfoundland Canada and the St Lawrence sea way, and the Japanese attempting a toe hold on the Aleutian islands during the rest of WWII. Then we have nations backing idiots in 1993 trying to bring down the World trade centers with a uhaul in the basement, and then we have 2001 with planes.... While the last are not tied to a particular sovereign nation they were attacks none the less....

These are the ones in the history books what about all that Russian election meddling and Iranian and Russian hacking we have heard about the last few years, or how soft and hack-able our infrastructure networks are ......

The US bitches about Iran, but forgets it was their own coup of a democratricly elected president that led the the current situation.

I am not as well versed in Iranian history pre-revloution, but I assume your referencing the 1950's??

Much like you ignore the multiple coup attempts, military backed regime changes, funding of terrorist gorilla groups, and just general screwing around south of your border for the last 60+ years.

Cute it actually is much longer than that, but that said it was efforts to keep the region stable as well as protect trade/trade partners and interests.

The us has been at war for 92% of its history, and since ww2 all its been doing is fucking up black, brown, and yellow countries.

Umm war is a bit of a strong term here conflict maybe a better choice of words, and more a reference after WWI since the USA was very isolationist (outside a few excursions in central America around the turn of the last century) from its founding prior to WWI. I like how you have to toss a racial component in there, as Korea, Vietnam, Gulf 1 and most other "conflicts and escapades" we were involved at the request of the allies getting fucked up before we got there. I use the term allies loosely, and I in fact agree with you a lot of it was unnecessary from a armchair monday afternoon quarterback perspective, but we weren't there to make those calls so thats all it is.

Oh the USA has declared war 5 times btw ;)

Then whining about the blow back. Perfect example is the war on drugs, cause apparently you guys didn't learn anything from the first try with prohibition.

Yes again we agree on something it seems banning things never works out well, and drop the bad PR "war on" whatever bs as some kind of talking point.

As was mentioned, its about priorities. Where a nation spends its money shows exactly where it's priorities lay. And the us's is war, not it's people.

Awwwww how cute, a simple google search was too time consuming for you but lets put some context to your moral indignity. The USA is expected to pull in 3.8T in 2019, and spend 4.75T this year. Nearly 60% of that spending number will be paid in mandatory spending on Soical Security (1.1T), and health care for the elderly and the poor via Medicare (679B) and Medicaid(418B).

SO what just was your point again????? Yes we do spend a lot on the DoD, but we spend a FUCK TON MORE, just shy of 2.2T on the federal level on our old people and our poor people in need of health care to help take care of them, regardless of color, gender or what the fuck you identify as. Thats what, nearly 3.8 times more than our DoD budget..... and more than double the total defense budget and more than 1/2 the federal budget for the year...... Good try though

Sleeve, your smart enough to know that it's not a matter of being able to do what almost every other nation has figured out.

I would not say "figured out" as we dont have it "figured out" either they are just trying an equally fucked yet different way of going about it, and failing in a totally different way.

It's purely a matter of not wanting to. At the end of the day all Americans love free shit, just those on the right don't want certain people to get that same free shit. Because to those on the right there's different levels of "american". Usually ranked first by your ethnic background, then your occupation. But throw in sexual orientation too. These are americans*. As long as they play white all's good. Step outside that box a little and suddenly they get kicked out of line. Where as to those on the left there is only the one American.

This is beyond Bullshit and the modern identity politics way of looking at the world, and massively and inherently flawed.... You want to talk about this start a new thread as I am not going to go down this rabbit hole in this thread

To be be blunt Sleeve, you make these distinctions. Within this very thread you decided that two Americans were guilty of a crime based on no other information than their race. And admitted to it. But still doubled down by using personal responsibility as an attack. Arguing that the mere act of speaking a different language is worthy of government detention and harassment. So I guess the first amendment doesn't apply the same to brown people, huh.

This again, 1) I agree they didnt do anything wrong, and can say what ever they want so NO I never said or advocated they committed a crime, 2) Race has nothing to do with anything. I said there were better choices that could have been made on both sides. I can say anything I want too does not mean there wont be consequences for saying them deserved or not, thats how life is sometimes, you know Not always "FAIR".

You also attack ocasio-cortez constantly with ad hominem. While also admitting that you haven't read any of her policy proposals. So is her being a Democrat, a woman, or a minority that keeps you from educating yourself before forming an opinion? And thus debating the actual policy?

Oh boy your wearing me out.

She is in so far over her head, its beyond obvious, drafted policy LOL thats nothing but a talking point and a rallying cry to keep things stirred up.

* she refuses to debate anyone with a counter view point (and has never taken anything other than a soft ball interview on TV) and has refused to take a interview with a Conservative news host

*She is proud she is credited with torpedoing the Amazon deal in NYC and killing a couple thousand good jobs coming to the city.

* Did you see her make fool of her self trying to sound relevant "questioning" Tim Sloan CEO of Wells Fargo last week.

* She Mocks prayer and politicizes with in hours the shooting in NZ then tries to deflect it being the NRA's fault......

* Galup releases a poll late last week about her favorablity going down, WAY down in the last 2 months and blames Fox news and white people, not her stupid shenanigans


This is just from the last 7-10 days shall I keep going


Now back to the lip service of circumventing the Electoral College....

[z31maniac]

ha. No way, man. Tell it like it is.

Finland, among all other Nordic countries, have very good universal healthcare programs. They cost more and more money lately because costs are increasing rapidly and the average age of their population is rising rapidly. Ok. In Finland's case, some people in their govm't set out to make it better, they failed, they took responsibility and resigned. Ok, great for Finland.

The Green New Deal idea is just an outline, btw. ie. a goal, a concept, not a neatly defined, budgeted plan. It's about priorities.

Saying any of these things "will cost too much" or are "pie in the sky" or whatever is a bunch of bullshit. Cost too much compared to what? The increase in our Military budget last year alone was DOUBLE what would've paid for Sanders' tuition plan.

We are definitely getting swindled, and for all the wrong things.

According to the CBO, the Green New Deal if implemented as outlined would cost $675,000 per household per year for 10 years. That doesn't sound like "bullshit" to me.

Also, no one thinks about supply and demand. People for the last 10 years have already complained that getting a college degree doesn't guarantee a job, so what happens to job market and cost of labor now that everyone has a 4 year degree?

And no, we already outsource lots of STEM work overseas because of labor cost. So I don't think free college for all is the answer to our labor market.

we can start with eliminating subsidies for already massively profitable petroleum companies, for one.

$10-52 billion depending on who you believe, what you count as a subsidy, etc.

I see no reason why any profitable company should receive tax payer support.

[CarpHunter]

According to the CBO, the Green New Deal if implemented as outlined would cost $675,000 per household per year for 10 years. That doesn't sound like "bullshit" to me.

Not the CBO, they have not done a study on it.

The number is an estimate from the American Action Forum, a self-described “center-right policy institute.” The AAF is the “sister organization” of the American Action Network, a conservative nonprofit that has spent tens of millions of dollars supporting Republicans in general elections. The AAN is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) that doesn’t disclose donors, but must disclose any independent expenditures on TV ads for or against specific candidates to the Federal Election Commission.

In a brief analysis, the AAF estimated costs for six sectors related to Green New Deal goals, including clean energy, high-speed rail, a job guarantee, health care, green housing and food security. The estimated costs only include outlays, and don’t factor in economic benefits or other effects.

The group produced a single figure or range for each category, which, when tallied, runs from $51 trillion to $93 trillion between 2020 and 2029. The summed figures don’t appear in the report, although they are mentioned in a separate summary. The upper number has gotten the most attention.

But the experts we spoke to said it’s not possible to put a specific price tag on the Green New Deal.

“I’d say that it is *way* too early to even pretend to put cost estimates on the ‘Green New Deal.’ It’s at this point a still-amorphous construct,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the labor-funded Economic Policy Institute, in an email to FactCheck.org.

Noah Kaufman, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, agreed. When asked what one can say about how much the Green New Deal would cost, he said, “basically nothing.”

The Green New Deal, he said, is a set of ambitions, not policies, and how much things cost will depend on what the policies are.

“You can’t use policy analysis if you don’t have policy,” said Kaufman, who previously served as President Barack Obama’s deputy associate director of energy and climate change. “It just seems definitely premature and a little misleading to try to claim we know how much.”

Jeffrey Miron, the director of economic studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said, “It’s hard to be very precise because a lot of the proposals are broad brush and vague.”

He nevertheless noted that other estimates — including one back-of-the-envelope calculation from Bloomberg Opinion writer Noah Smith, which came out to $6.6 trillion every year — have been roughly the same as the American Action Forum’s figure.

The president of the American Action Forum and a co-author of the analysis, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, defended the estimate, but acknowledged that using the $93 trillion figure by itself was not ideal.

“The figure’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete,” he said, adding that in a perfect world, people would give ranges and convey uncertainty. Holtz-Eakin is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and was John McCain’s chief economic adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign.

A better numerical summary of the findings, Holtz-Eakin said, would be $50 trillion to $90 trillion, with some mention of the nuances in the report.

The analysis, for example, notes that the breadth of the Green New Deal “makes it daunting to apply the standard tools of policy analysis.”

The paper goes on to say that the Green New Deal would result in changes that “are impossible to quantify at this point,” and that redundancy in certain policies “complicates a precise analysis, as the interactions are difficult to predict.”

Those caveats aren’t included when Republicans bring up the Green New Deal’s price tag.

Strictly speaking, as a nonbinding resolution that would require other legislation to carry out its goals, the Green New Deal costs nothing. Even if it passed both the House and the Senate, it would not have the force of law. Lawmakers would have to propose other legislation to act on any of the broad goals in the resolution. And that legislation would include specific policy proposals, which the CBO would score as it would any other bill. The score would then be provided to lawmakers so they could be informed about the impact of the legislation on the federal budget.

The AAF estimate shouldn’t be thought of as the same or even similar to a CBO cost estimate, which estimates the full impact of the legislation on the federal budget, given spending and revenue changes.

[z31maniac]

My bad, the co-author was the former director of the CBO. Which I see your article doesn't mention.

So basically we have opposite lobbying groups saying, "Hey this is going to be unrealistically expensive." And the other lobbying groups saying, "Well, you don't know it will be THAT expensive."


But any idea that it wouldn't be horrifically expensive is willful ignorance.

[mbonder]

There are three ways to change the Presidential election system.

Two of these ways would be to eliminate the Electoral College so that the President and Vice President are selected by a popular vote. The third way is to leave the Electoral College in place but alter the way votes are cast within it. This third way has been gaining some traction because it is a way for the states to affect a change to the electoral system without having to pass an amendment to the constitution through one of the two first ways (mentioned above and described below).

So option #1:

Pass a Constitutional Amendment through Congress that eliminates the Electoral College.

This would require the approval of 2/3rds of each house of Congress for it to become an amendment to the Constitution. This is a rare instance where the President does not have a role and a signature is not required on the Amendment for it to become law.

Option #2:

Constitutional Convention.

2/3rds of the states can agree to hold a Constitutional Convention. At this convention the proposal can be made to Amend the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College and replace it with the popular election of the President and Vice President.


In both cases, the Amendment would need to be ratified by 3/4ths of the states for it to be law (38 of 50 states)

Option #3:

Leave the Electoral College alone as it stands in the Constitution. Instead the states amend their electoral laws to state that their electors in the Electoral College will vote for whichever candidate receives the majority vote in the popular election. The idea here is that this will ensure that the vote of the Electoral College will always reflect the vote of the popular election.

There are positives and negatives to the Electoral College System that is currently in place.

Positives:

-Gives all states a role in electing the executive
-Proportionally represents the populations of each state. Smaller states have fewer electors and larger states have more electors. This is a democratic function of the system.
-Ensures a decisive victory. The Electoral College vote has never been a tie. This allows there to be less doubt as to who the president should be. Even if you dislike Trump, you can't argue that he didn't win the Electoral College and therefore win the presidency. The popular vote, because it is an accumulation of a much larger number of votes can be argued for accuracy in any number of states and would drag out the election for many months as recounts are done and court cases are adjudicated.


Negatives:

-The popular vote doesn't always align with the Electoral College vote
-A handful of states can become decisive in the election, making other states fairly meaningless because they are predetermined and therefore candidates can feel free to ignore them if they are expected to win or lose in decisive fashion in those states.
-A small number of electoral districts can have an outweighed amount of power. As was seen in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in 2016, a small number of districts essentially determined who would be president.


There are other positives and negatives that can be added here, I've in no way included an exhaustive list. What I will say is that the Electoral College is going no where, regardless of who is in control of Congress or the Executive. The reason being is that it would require 3/4ths of the states to ratify an amendment to abolish it and there simply aren't enough states that would buy into such a change (mainly because they would lose power in some way from the current system).

So that leaves us with Option #3, which there are currently 10 states and Washington DC that have signed laws that will force their electoral delegates to vote as the popular vote is cast. That's a total of 165 Electoral votes out of the 270 required. These are predominantly Democratic states that have passed these laws, so I don't think a system like this would be in full enough effect for it to be instituted in 2020, however, there could be an election in the future where this is possible as some state governments flip from red to blue and change their laws, especially if those states happen to be bigger ones like Texas and Florida, which is entirely possible given the increasing number of minorities that are taking up residence in both of those states.


If you read this far, I would like to add this friendly Public Service Announcement:

They're=They are, such as "they're going to New York City"
There=A location such as "over there, in New York City"
Their=Possession of something, such as "Their apartment is in New York City"

Your=Possession of something, such as "This is your apartment in New York City"
You're=You are, such as "You're going to visit New York City"

It's aggravating to read some of the posts that are being made by supposedly educated people who can't use the proper word to make a statement. I apologize to anyone who has learned English as a second language because I'm invading your safe space, but hopefully we've learned a little here today about the Electoral College System and how English should be spoken properly. (That said, if I made a spelling or grammatical mistake above you can just go fuck yourself before you even think about calling me out for it)

[phillipj]

The "Green New Deal" is simply a long list of ideals for the United States to reach "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. It's not a concrete bill up for vote in Congress. It's ambitious. Let's applaud that. Why don't we see competing proposals? Because it seems all our people in power take large sums of money from Fossil Fuel industry.

"Z31Maniac" -- Sure let's talk in terms of cost. A large "cost" of the proposal is modernizing the entire US electrical grid, completely needed and would be a huge source of jobs. All I am saying is that we currently spend mind-boggling sums on endless wars, weapons, destruction and death, which is not actually keeping anyone safe, we create instability in the world, I am sure you would agree -- or, just, maybe, we start investing instead in building this country up. Also, let's invest, instead, in our own education, too.

And you might say 'we don't need people with all these degrees' but there are a lot of people around you with never-ending school debt that might disagree. I don't think these subsidized public tuition/trade school ideas are about giving away needless degrees, it's more about creating a path for higher education (if one so chooses) without having to be saddled for life in debt.

[phillipj]

Mbonder -- Thank you for the Electoral College rundown! And god I have been thinking the exact same thing about their/there/they're for about 10 pages now.

[z31maniac]

The "Green New Deal" is simply a long list of ideals for the United States to reach "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. It's not a concrete bill up for vote in Congress. It's ambitious. Let's applaud that. Why don't we see competing proposals? Because it seems all our people in power take large sums of money from Fossil Fuel industry.

Just like they take large amounts of money from Wall Street and Big Pharma, and look whats going on there.

The core of the problem is lobbying, but let's see people who vote themselves raises during a recession, pass legislation that takes away campaign money and other "perks."

"Z31Maniac" -- Sure let's talk in terms of cost. A large "cost" of the proposal is modernizing the entire US electrical grid, completely needed and would be a huge source of jobs. All I am saying is that we currently spend mind-boggling sums on endless wars, weapons, destruction and death, which is not actually keeping anyone safe, we create instability in the world, I am sure you would agree -- or, just, maybe, we start investing instead in building this country up. Also, let's invest, instead, in our own education, too.

I've been saying that for years and years in this forum.

And you might say 'we don't need people with all these degrees' but there are a lot of people around you with never-ending school debt that might disagree. I don't think these subsidized public tuition/trade school ideas are about giving away needless degrees, it's more about creating a path for higher education (if one so chooses) without having to be saddled for life in debt.

Well then they should have pursued a degree in something for which there was a job market. Yes, a common generalization, but probably incorrect (or is it?)

But just like not everyone gets a degree in Social Studies, not everyone graduates college with "never-ending school debt." My old college roommate graduated in 5.5 years (just like my slacker ass did) with no debt. Why? He went to a state school, like me, and worked full-time while going to class.

[Schnitzer318is]

Speaking to a right winger... you can give all the numbers or positions you like about slashing the defense budget and it will just make you blue in the face. They will NEVER support cutting defense spending. There's too much money involved from lobbyists, government contracts, etc.

The Electoral College thing is sour grapes. If Hillary had done her job as a candidate she would have won (I did not want her to win). She wasted a lot of rich people's (and corporation's) money though, which I was happy to see. A little bump for the economy is always nice.

I'll admit, I don't follow Ocasio-Cortez's every move so I don't know how competent or how idiotic she actually is. How about we give her a chance to mature as a politician? She's made strides deferring to party leadership and maybe it's dawning on her that she still has to learn to play the game.

I'm glad Beto is doing well raising money. We'll see how long that lasts as the campaign cycle is incredibly long.

[phillipj]

Just like they take large amounts of money from Wall Street and Big Pharma, and look whats going on there.

The core of the problem is lobbying, but let's see people who vote themselves raises during a recession, pass legislation that takes away campaign money and other "perks."

Right on. That's why the biggest key to any progress is getting people to care/get educated/speak out/vote on: campaign finance reform, electoral reform, gerrymandering, 'citizen's united', etc.

... seems daunting. ugh.

[phillipj]

Im not going to get involved with this thread but what i will say is that i listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Andrew Yang. Very interesting guy, dunno if i agreed with all of what he said but he was interesting to listen to and had some good ideas.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look it up & tune in. I liked reading Andrew Yang's policy page, it's smart. He's super thorough, nice to someone coming at this from a different direction/professional background.

[Schnitzer318is]

Right on. That's why the biggest key to any progress is getting people to care/get educated/speak out/vote on: campaign finance reform, electoral reform, gerrymandering, 'citizen's united', etc.

... seems daunting. ugh.

I agree with all that. Been saying it for a long time. Unfortunately, no politician actually wants to change the system once they get in. It's like getting into an ultra exclusive country club. Once you are a member... you like that it's so exclusive and enjoy all the benefits that come with membership.

[mbonder]

I think the one thing that people often don't mention when it comes to Defense Spending is that the largest benefactors from Defense Spending are the individual workers that would be out of a job if the Defense budget were to be cut. Defense spending is in a way another subsidy to a contingent of American citizenry. Often those Defense contractors are located in states where there isn't much in the way of other industry. Look at Alabama, how screwed would that state be if companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc were to start slashing jobs because they didn't have the same money coming in from the DoD?

Traditionally, Republicans have called themselves job creators and have been able to prove successful in that capacity because they get into government and then immediately increase DoD spending, thus creating jobs. Look at what Trump did when he got into the Presidency, he immediately lowered taxes and increased DoD spending. Job creation 101, and the reason why the Defense budget will never shrink. Only President who effectively reduced the Defense budget in the last century was Eisenhower, because who would ever argue military spending with a 5 star general and the guy that saved the world from the Nazis?

[z31maniac]

I think the one thing that people often don't mention when it comes to Defense Spending is that the largest benefactors from Defense Spending are the individual workers that would be out of a job if the Defense budget were to be cut. Defense spending is in a way another subsidy to a contingent of American citizenry. Often those Defense contractors are located in states where there isn't much in the way of other industry. Look at Alabama, how screwed would that state be if companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc were to start slashing jobs because they didn't have the same money coming in from the DoD?

Traditionally, Republicans have called themselves job creators and have been able to prove successful in that capacity because they get into government and then immediately increase DoD spending, thus creating jobs. Look at what Trump did when he got into the Presidency, he immediately lowered taxes and increased DoD spending. Job creation 101, and the reason why the Defense budget will never shrink. Only President who effectively reduced the Defense budget in the last century was Eisenhower, because who would ever argue military spending with a 5 star general and the guy that saved the world from the Nazis?

That's an interesting point, but as someone who has worked for one of the largest defense contractors in the country, it's a HORRIFICALLY expensive way to create middle-class jobs.

It's like the old saying, "How you do end up with a million dollars in racing? Start with $10 million."

The waste and inefficiency are part of the exorbitant costs. The levels of bureaucracy. It's insane.

[Schnitzer318is]

I think the one thing that people often don't mention when it comes to Defense Spending is that the largest benefactors from Defense Spending are the individual workers that would be out of a job if the Defense budget were to be cut. Defense spending is in a way another subsidy to a contingent of American citizenry. Often those Defense contractors are located in states where there isn't much in the way of other industry. Look at Alabama, how screwed would that state be if companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc were to start slashing jobs because they didn't have the same money coming in from the DoD?

Traditionally, Republicans have called themselves job creators and have been able to prove successful in that capacity because they get into government and then immediately increase DoD spending, thus creating jobs. Look at what Trump did when he got into the Presidency, he immediately lowered taxes and increased DoD spending. Job creation 101, and the reason why the Defense budget will never shrink. Only President who effectively reduced the Defense budget in the last century was Eisenhower, because who would ever argue military spending with a 5 star general and the guy that saved the world from the Nazis?

^Not denying any of that. But sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. If jobs were lost at those government contractor companies, I am assuming it would be skilled labor or educated individuals, it should not be difficult for them to find another job with similar pay. Based on the lobbying spending from the big 3 in aviation... it looks like they could probably retain everyone if they just stopped the spending on lobbyists.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/in...=D01&year=2018